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organizng bookshelves
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I finally figured out how to find a solid wood bookshelf for a decent price: on craigslist. I found a set of them disguised as “entertainment center” that is 8 ft wide in three sections. We are hanging a clothing rod in the tv armoire to repurpose it to the bedroom. I looked and looked at used furniture shops and thrift stores for years and never seen the good ones. Many of these stores have lists of people to call when they get any in. But today I am getting two 30″ x 16″ x 75″ solid oak 5 shelf bookcases! Bye-bye cheap particle wood and glue warped bookshelves that scare me to come near for fear of a book avalanche!
So I am re-organizing my bookshelves. I may have more questions as I get further into it, but here are my questions so far:
I have many bio. books on US Presidents. Should these be by themselves or in chronological order with other American history?
Do you organize in a good way based on size of book within a genre? We have many history books. Some are 8″ x 5″. Others are 12″ by 8″. They don’t seem to fit nicely on the shelf together. Many of the smaller ones are bio. or historical fiction. Do you separate these from non-fiction?
Is there a good way to display a list of the kindle ebooks I own? As I browse our physical library, I often forget titles on my kindle. So I need a visual reminder.
Any other advice on organizing books in a home library?
Here’s how I did most of the school library:
http://mysouldothdelight.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/finding-a-book-in-my-library/#comments
For the Kindle, I organized them into folders on the Kindle and then printed the lists that came with YC or HH…the rest just sorted into the folders they belong in, such as Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Classical Literature, Poetry, Shakespeare, Bible, Science, etc. That makes it easier as I am planning to at least see them in one spot. lol
I have a large home library and I organize my history and historical fiction together in chronological order. I organize the rest similar to how Valerie from Valerie’s Living Books recommends (using days of creation as a basis for non-fiction). I use colored spine labels from Demco for categories. Copper (history and hitorical fiction) with module or time period penciled on front page. Green – science. Orange – Fiction. Red is fine arts (poetry, composer/music, art). Pink is holidays. Purple is picture books. Blue is Bible/missions, etc.
I go alphabetically by author within sections. It isn’t as pretty, but it makes it easier to find.
I use Bookpedia to catalog my books and track who borrows what. I do have my ebooks in Bookpedia, but a printout might be nice though I hate paper.
Hi! I actually get kinda excited by a well organized and styled bookshelf! LOL! We are currently putting in a whole wall of bookshelves that are “half tall” in our living room right now and I am very excited about being able to get them filled!
I always go by subject for all books that could be used for school. For our history, I organize them by history era (ancients, middle ages, ren/ref., early mod/mod) with a color coded sticker on the spine (but I may be in the process of changing this slightly). I put the bios all together but right beside the history books. I do this because we often study a person in history for other subjects (like science) and so I started wanting them to be somewhat separate. All subjects have their own color coded sticker right now and if I want to organize the books further within subjects I make marks with a marker on top of the sticker. ie. all the history books have a yellow sticker but all the ancients have a #1 on the sticker, the middle ages all have a #2…etc.
For the size thing, I don’t line up all my books in a row either, sometimes I can group more books and make it look better by stacking them flat with the spine facing out. I also, sometimes put the bigger books from one subject laying flat and then line up the smaller ones on top of it. I also group books into bins and baskets within the bookshelves if I think that makes sense as well.
For displaying the kindle reads for each subject, I think I would print off a list of all books within sujects on a pretty piece of paper and put them in small frames and then either stand them in the bookshelf right along with the rest of the books in that subject or I would hang them with small 3M hooks on the ends or edges of the shelves themselves.
Alright, I have rambled on long enough! Congratulations on your bookshelves, it really is a happy thing, isn’t it? ; ).
Blessings,
Miranda
I separate historical fiction from the non-fiction…although in the past I had them together. I re-did it since they outgrew the one bookshelf. I have some presidentail biographies in their own group, but they are all from the same set of books. I keep our history books roughly in chronological order (ancient history, middle ages, colonial times, pioneers, etc.). If I have similarly sized ones from the same time period, I keep them together. I saw someone’s blog (maybe it was someone here?) where they had thinner paperback books stored in magazine holders. On the front, they had the contents of the box listed. It looked much more organized than my shelves and I’d love to do something similar at some point!
For e-books, I have a list of our Yesterday’s Classics books in my homeschool binder. They have a small 1″ copy of the book cover, along with the title and author. I really should do this with our other e-books, but I haven’t gotten around to it.
Wow! Either I’m exceptionally lazy or you ladies are incredibly motivated…books are dumped in baskets or shoved on shelves here lol. Oh how I’d love an organized “library”, but the kids would destroy that in a heartbeat…I’ve given up even having books neatly on shelves for now. I’ll have to remember this post for ‘One Day’
For the color dot stickers, do they stay okay or do you put clear tape over it? Does this ruin the book spine? Do you designate school books on the dot? Like maybe S for school?
I love the idea of framing a list of ebooks. I have the cds for HH so they are displayed for the list. Is there any way to print a list from Amazon of all your kindle ebooks?
Well, so far I have found that the stickers stay better on some books than others depending on the finish and so I was starting to have to cover some with a tape. But, so far I have not had anything get ruined by this. I do know that some tape is MUCH nicer to take off easily without residue or tearing than others. I will say, though, that a lot of my books are second hand and so are not in like new condition to begin with so I was not overly worried about that when I started. I have started coming up with a new Idea for my books recently, and I am still working out how it will work out realistically. You can get labels (like missceegee) that are made for organizing books. They would probably be easier and better to use, but I just have never went so far as to look for them. I don’t mark books for school because any books that we would NOT consider using for school would mostly be DH and my own personal books and those are usually kept on separate shelves or baskets. So, I have not found that to be necessary as of yet.
I also like the idea of magazine holders (especially the really nice looking ones!) for organizing books, but so many of my books don’t seem to fit very well in these so I have only been able to use that idea for a couple of sets of thin paperback books and that was it.
Hope you figure out something you love! I know I am really looking forward to getting our shelves done! Right now everything is in a big pile in the middle of our living room waiting to be put away onto the new shelves and it is starting to get to me! HA!
-Miranda
The labels from Demco stick to every book, regardless of cover! I’m in the process of removing my handcut and colored address label stickers from over 5,000 books and replacing them with these. They are terrific and look lovely, too!
For magazine holders – 2 options- are open front or turning it on its side. I’ve done both.
I use my software, Bookpedia, and add tags to help make finding a book easy.
Thanks Christie. I willl look for the Demco labels. I like Sheraz’s shelves with the magazine holders for small paperbacks. Thanks for the blog link and pics. I will try this.
Knowing that we will get more books each year, should I leave a little extra room on each shelf or should I plan to spend time re-organizing each year?
I have tried to do the “leave room for new books coming in” thing, which worked to a degree but I always find that I tend to reorganize a bit a couple times a year anyways. But that’s just me and I am a little picky about my organizational systems! ; ).
The other thing I would make sure of is that whatever you do come up with for your own system, keep it simple enough to be able to teach your kids the system and use it consistently. I like having the books be easy to recognize what space they belong to and relatively obvious when they are in the wrong space. Even my 6 yr old has been able to help with library organization jobs and it makes thngs much better!
I think I may look at the Demco lables as well! They sound great! I wish I knew how to link to pictures or even post them, just so I can show someone my new book system when it is done. It’s hard to find people who appreciate home library organizational systems enough to want to actually see them! HA! Wish I could see yours when they are done as well.
-Miranda
I love your magazine holders, sheraz! Did you recover them after purchasing them at the book sale? Those I’ve seen are so worn out, It never occurred to me to scoop them up. DING! On the top of my list for the next sale!!!
As I’m going through the process of organizing our homeschool library in order to open it up to others, I’m wrestling with the Dewey, or not Dewey Question. Many, no most of our books now are labeled with DD#s as they’ve been library sale purchases. And, I have a database that refers to them. However, I really would rather do a color coded system similar to what you’ve shown…..but, with our intentions to grow the library, I’m unsure if that would remain manageable in the long run when we have multiple thousands of books some day.
Decisions, decisions…
I have opted against Dewey even though I do plan to open my library to many more people in the future (I already do with my co-op members). I prefer my subject classification system even as my library has grown to over 5000 volumes. It works for me. This is similar to how bookstores organize and makes sense to me. I use tags a lot in my software, so it makes cross referencing simple.
Demco labels – I use these tinted label protectors in colors for different categories. I took my category cues mainly from Valerie’s Living Books.
History by Era – Copper 1-2-3-4-5-6
Historical Fiction – copper with hist. fiction sticker
Biography – copper with bio. sticker
Geography, Culture, Countries – Tan (this one is fluctuating a bit)
Science by Day of Creation – Green1-2-3-4-5-6
Nature Study – Yellow
Social Sciences (econ., military, govt, comm., transportation) – light green
Fine Arts – Red
Picture Books – Purple
Reference – Red/White reference
Bible – BluePersonal Development – Light Blue
Holidays – Light Purple
Fiction (lit.) – Orange
Non-Fiction – gray
Life Skills, Hobbies, Handicrafts – Pink
SPACING – For spacing, I’ve reorganized more times than I can count, but I have recently begun using shelf markers like these with a printed label from my label maker. They are easy to shift as I add more books, the simplest system that I’ve found that takes no space. I also have animal ones for my kids to mark where they pull books.
HISTORY – I use the SCM modules as my guide, too. Books used in the module are labeled with color only and in my software, SCM Module 1. Extra books for the time period are labeled SCM Module 1X for extra.
Since you are planning to open the library, I think I would do the “Dewey thing”, Becca, since so many people are already familiar with it. Then when they visit your library and you are busy with someone else, you will still be able to help the person locate a book. That would totally affect my decision to use a library – the ease of locating something without requiring help! And the other reason I would do it is because I have many that are already labeled too! =)
I didn’t actually completely recover the magazine boxes. I just centered my contents or title in the document before printing and taped it around the box. I figured no one sees the edges since they are nestled in the big books, but it made them uniform enough that my eyes could move around without getting “stuck” and hid the fact that they were already written on or worn.
Here’s the link to how I structure my organization – http://www.valerieslivinglibrary.com/library.htm
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